An 80 Year Old Longest Study on Happiness Answers What Is a Good Life?

THOUGHTS

The Harvard Study of Adult Development

A good life. A notion so desperately wanted but equally less understood. After all, isn’t a good life your fundamental right?

In the 1930s, some men at Harvard University decided to study “what is a good life?”

The thought soon gave rise to the study on happiness and arguably the longest study on human happiness.

In the last piece, the result of a survey I did with my peers and friends, the score of happiness rated by most was 7/10. Not to mention that there were lower and even higher scores, but the median or most answers fell in the 7/10 bracket.

Agreed the sample size was around 15 people and doesn’t provide a correct insight, but it was enough to tickle the researching nerve inside. Moreover, most answers equated happiness and satisfaction with money and status.

Most of what we want or desire is an illusion created around us. Marketers do a splendid job to make that happen, and in a quest to achieve what is being shoved down our throats, it is they who achieve their targets. We get despair due to unfulfilled dreams and aspirations.

A survey conducted on millennials to assess their most important life goals had expected replies. Over 80 percent wanted to get rich, and 50 percent within the same group listed “getting famous” as another major life goal. We can understand the despair now.

The expectations set earlier in life push us to work hard, compete, and continuously live the life of acquiring things for happiness, even for momentary pleasure.

All we have is momentary happiness only. Buy a new house, a car, an expensive watch, or something else; it pleases us. Although short-lived, we love it because otherwise, we live crappy lives. We keep believing in acquisitions and let them overpower us.

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